


it's rotten work

by orphan_account



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Gen, Mild Gore, Minor Violence, thanatos and the fun that comes with cleaning up human souls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:35:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28622649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: The Styx remains heavy no matter where you are, no matter where it circles - it has pulled countless people under with that weight.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	it's rotten work

**Author's Note:**

> MILD warnings for talk of death, talk of corpses, talk of violence/war
> 
> my greek mythology knowledge is not as good as it should be + i was trying to adapt stuff from the game too (like how the styx flows thru onto the surface in game) idk dont take it too seriously.

Lately, he is always working.

_ People just seem incapable of not killing each other _ , Thanatos thinks, his feet submerged in the sticky, slow running Styx. He has stopped, just for a moment, just to catch his breath. The river seems to have no base temperature - he has never been able to discern whether it is hot or cold, and while it feels thick and heavy over his feet he knows if he submerged his hands in it and brought some of it out in his hands it would flow like water, not like blood.

He's barely on the surface, but he is definitely out of the upper levels of the underworld now - the river gets lighter and more like water the further away from Tartarus you go, though the texture never changes. The Styx remains heavy no matter where you are, no matter where it circles - it has pulled countless people under with that weight. Thanatos has spent more time than he would ever wish to spend upon the surface lately - which is to say any time at all - because  _ mortals just will not stop killing each other _ . It is just too damn  _ bright  _ up here, sickly greens from the leaves on the trees and deep reds, oranges, shades of purple from the fruit that hang off them. The leaves on the bushes are sharp, would prick his skin and make him bleed were that something he could do.   
Thanatos does not hold any ire for his work - how do you hate what you were moulded for, really? - but the shades he has had to escort lately have come in droves, and come bloody and sticky and  _ rotting _ . Death smells of rot and terror, sometimes - sometimes peace, too, but lately mostly (always) sickening,  _ sticky  _ terror - and it makes him wonder what really is happening with this war on the surface. Not that he’s privy to the details, and not that he particularly  _ wants  _ to be, but he does have to wonder how much those seated upon Olympus enjoy this. It almost feels like a game - something to peer at and be entertained by. Shock value, maybe. He doesn’t pretend he knows. Hypnos asked, once, why he was always up on the surface nowadays - war, he had said. When his brother had asked _over what?_ he had no answer for him.

He breathes in again, and moves himself out of the river, floating, feet slightly off the ground. His hand is on his scythe in case he needs to use it - he prefers not to, half because he does not actually particularly enjoy violence, and half because it really does save him a lot of time when shades who need escorting co-operate instead of clinging to life, trying to claw themselves back into the meat of their flesh. He follows the river up, up, up, past fields of green into tracked dirt, and then tracked blood, and then the land splits in two with the river down the middle and the spoils of the day are visible to him.

Corpses litter the field on both sides of the river, some fresh, some rotting already - the smell is strong, the sun now high in the sky speeding along the rot. It’s not a pleasant sight he imagines, for anyone not used to it - blood tracks itself along every direction on the ground, and the imagery of the corpses along with the smell - well. It’s all in the job description.    
Most shades now sit huddled over their bodies - shaking, formless things, now, souls without anchors. They flit between green and blue and orange, just hazy shapes without purpose, though still bearing vague features of who they once were - who they still are. He can make out a strong, sharp nose on one shade - full, curly hair on another. High cheekbones, long fingernails, a crook where the nose was broken in life - these things yet remain in death, and always will. He can also see right through them - nothing at all where organs would have (roughly) one been. Thanatos can give them purpose - a voyage, a resting place - though hardly a pleasant one, considering the way most of these people went. He cannot imagine any of these souls will find a place in Elysium. Perhaps some will make it to the Asphodel Meadows - the Gods judge death during war oddly, sometimes, like it matters less. He watches the shades move, and supposes that because these people had been surrounded by the violence of this war so greatly in life it had perhaps made accepting their inevitable ends during it easier to accept - he has had to drag shades screaming (as much as they can without discernible mouths) from their rotted through corpses before, unable to believe that they have died. There has been less and less of that, lately - it is easy to usher these shades down the river, onto Charon’s boat.    
Thanatos is surprised Charon will even take any of these shades - so few receive any kind of proper burial, and therefore no coins sit under their heavy tongues to pay him for the voyage. He imagines Nyx must have said something to him - perhaps tempted him with her own stash of coins. He cannot say.    
They move without purpose, depressed and pulsating - but they move, and that is all that really matters to him. He assumes they have to know their battle is not one that can be won, not until those on Olympus grow bored - and who can say when that will be, really. He has known them to drag things like this out for a long, long time, though lately the work has come constant and bloody. He has barely had time to be in the underworld himself, as busy as he is. Tartarus must practically be bustling now.

He feels out the field, trying to feel for any lingering shades and feels one in the far east. It takes him only a second to move himself there, willing his body to be where the smell of death is, and finds himself upon a shade. Deep green, with eyes to match - or, an eye. One is missing, the socket black and empty. Not a recent injury - it healed nicely. 

“Death is inevitable,” he reminds them. “It is time to go.” The shade has a mouth, teeth sharp and bloody. They do not smell of grief, but anger - they smell of war.

“And if I refuse?” they ask. Their voice is tinny, like it’s coming from underwater - the way it moves past their bloody teeth invokes images of violence, like it’s pouring out of them.  _ This person was dangerous _ , Thanatos thinks. He glances at their body - long, black hair, pale face, one green eye still open and angry, one gone. A sword still rests in their hand. The corpse is fresh - they have been dead since early afternoon. An hour, at most.

“You cannot,” he tells them. “It is inevitable.”    
“ _ I _ was inevitable,” the shade spits. Thanatos tries not to roll his eyes. “Do you know how many people I killed? The Gods were looking out for me, they-” Thanatos cuts the shade off with a quick swing of his scythe - so quick it’s barely visible. He cleaves the shade in half, leaving them subdued for now and on their way to the Styx - if their will is strong enough the two pieces of the soul will find each other again. If not, no great loss to him or anybody else. 

He looks out over the field again, blinks. Human life does not matter to him, not beyond technicalities, but this feels wrong. Off, heavy. Unnecessary. 

It is not his place to question. The bell tolls, heavy and true, and he will return tomorrow, too.


End file.
